Federal inspectors are at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant this week to investigate an unexpected shutdown of both reactors last week, which a plant spokesman said apparently was triggered by melting snow leaking through the plant's roof. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a five-member "special inspection team" Monday to the 1,750-megawatt plant near Lusby in Calvert County, which is owned by Constellation Energy. It's expected to remain there all week, NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they have trust in federal employees , a spike in public confidence that some are attributing to last year's partial government shutdown. In a recent Battleground Poll by George Washington University, 22 percent of registered voters surveyed said they had "a lot" of confidence in federal workers , and 51 percent said they had "some. " The public's confidence in the federal workforce waned in 2012 and 2013 after scandals involving the Internal Revenue Service and the General Services Administration but rebounded after the shutdown last October.

The article, "Obama turns up the heat" (Oct. 4) reports misinformation from President Barack Obama, or else he is just ignorant of the process or is trying to stir up the citizens to support his constant spending. President Obama is supposed to propose a budget yearly which he didn't do his first three years in office. He pushed through a health care bill in the late of night without funding the bill. Now, he wants to blame Republicans for trying to right a bad situation. He only talks about health care, but he never talks about the tax on the sale of property that is hidden in the bill.

A ruling by a federal judge in a lawsuit filed by federal employees over the government shutdown last fall has given the workers hope that they could soon be eligible for a payout. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Chief Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith declined to dismiss the lawsuit brought by some 2,000 workers who were deemed essential during the during the 16-day shutdown. The plaintiffs worked through the shutdown but didn't get paid on time for their labor. Campbell-Smith wrote in an opinion that the federal government violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, but she didn't go as far as saying that the government needed to pay the plaintiffs.

It is a sad day ("The unproductive shutdown," Oct. 1). Congratulations to our elected government officials. They have accomplished what the British could not do: They shut down Fort McHenry. H.J. McCormick, Linthicum

I don't really believe anything I write about the government shutdown is going to make a difference, but the handful of people who are responsible for it seem deaf and blind to any logic but their own ( "Fund the government, then negotiate," Oct. 7). Shutting down the government because you can't get your way about one law that you dislike isn't why our democracy was created. In fact it was just the opposite. It's what we were trying to get away from, a monarchy controlled by a few that felt it had a divine right to have things its way. Seventy-five percent of Americans don't agree with the shutdown as a legitimate political tactic.

As one of the many Baltimore Gas and Electric PeakRewards customers who had air conditioning turned off on the afternoon of July 22 for a few hours, I disagree with op-ed writer William Yeatman that I was a helpless victim of the government ("Blame government, not BGE, for turning off the AC," Aug. 9). Of my own free will, I signed up for PeakRewards and I have received approximately $60 per summer for the past three years. This was the first time that I was inconvenienced. I really doubt that anyone in the "heat-sensitive population" would have signed up for this program and it is thus unlikely that they were affected.

I served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam war, and I am deeply indebted to those who gave their lives so we could enjoy living in a free society. Our founders, who believed in the Creator, were the architects of a system of checks and balances that comes as close to being fair (given that man is inherently selfish) as can possibly be conceived. Even as we watch events drag out before us and witness the childish displays of those who are serving at our behest, our system of government will trump the idiocy that is currently on display because it was designed to do so. I thank our forefathers for having the foresight to envision events that may challenge our liberty like those before us now. Never in the history of the United States has the executive branch closed down national parks and lands on which they have leases for the purpose of hurting Americans in ways that are as harmful as possible.

Editor: The editorial " U.S. is us" published Oct. 4 urges our politicians to "...make deals to keep the government open," but ignores the deeper problem that we face, which is out of control spending by both political parties. The Democrats waste our tax dollars on welfare, unions, minorities and bigger government, giving us unsustainable trillion dollar deficits every year. Meanwhile, the Republicans waste our money on warfare, starting a disastrous war in Iraq and, now, in order to pander to the powerful pro-Israel lobby, are trying to start a more insane war in Iran.

Whole Foods Market, the latest retailer to offer government shutdown specials, has invited shoppers in on Sunday for a free spaghetti dinner. "With no end in sight to the government shutdown, wanted to pass along what Whole Foods Market is planning to do to help in the community," Katie Malloy, a spokeswoman for the grocer, said in an email. "Because federal workers are not just customers -- they're neighbors, partners, family and friends. " Malloy says Whole Foods is offering more free samples, Wi-Fi and seating to encourage consumers, furloughed or not, to gather at the stores.

Attendance at Maryland's national parks, including at Baltimore's Fort McHenry, dropped in 2013, thanks in part to a shutdown of the federal government that closed the parks, officials said. Maryland's two dozen national parks took in 6.6 million visits last year, down by about 40,000 from 2012. The state's parks generated $212 million in 2013, about $5 million less than the year before. Baltimore's Fort McHenry took in 678,000 visitors last year and $37,000, a drop from 2012 when the site brought in 700,000 visitors and $40,000.

Media ratings firm Nielsen Holdings will shutter its Columbia call center at the end of August, one of three the company will close as it absorbs Arbitron Inc. A Nielsen spokesman declined to say how many people in Maryland will be affected by the call center's closing. A spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said the agency has not received word about layoffs since November, when Nielsen announced it would shed 330 jobs or about a third of its Columbia work force.

Howard Friedman has heard the chatter from his own community to Capitol Hill - sometimes questions, sometimes complaints about the federal workforce, its size and its cost. The Gaithersburg man, an attorney and union leader at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, wants to change the conversation. "We've been criticized far too long, strictly on matters dealing with the size of the workforce and our compensation," he said. "I think people don't really understand the direct connection between what we do and the quality of life in our country for taxpayers and for everybody.

Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant shut down on Tuesday evening following an electric malfunction. The outage, which occurred at around 9:25 p.m., resulted from a breakdown on the non-nuclear side of the Calvert County facility, according to a news release. Electric service to regional homes and businesses are not expected to be affected as backup power systems are in place. In an email, Calvert Cliffs spokesman Kory Raftery said the plant is in stable condition and there is no threat to public health and safety due to the shutdown.

Hundreds of federal workers who say they were not paid on time during the partial government shutdown are suing for compensation. The suit, initially filed in October on behalf of five Bureau of Prisons workers, has since attracted interest from about 2,000 federal employees , many of them from Maryland, attorney Heidi Burakiewicz said. Congress voted to make the workers whole after the shutdown ended, but the workers want to be compensated for having to juggle bills and plead with creditors amid the uncertainty of not knowing when the next check would arrive.

The famous Douglas MacArthur line that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away" certainly doesn't apply, not yet anyway, to World War II combat hero and later Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole. Now age 90 but still going strong, Mr. Dole was back on Capitol Hill the other night where he reigned in the 1980s and 1990s as Senate Republican leader. The occasion was the renaming of a school meals and education program linking him with the late George McGovern, his old Democratic foe but wholehearted partner in humanitarian endeavors.

Baltimore sage H.L. Mencken provided several observations that are relevant to the current political situation. For example, he wrote that "people constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. " On the fact that the fractious incompetents in Congress were all duly elected and that the country has thus...

Taxpayers who like to get their refunds ASAP will need a little more patience. Thanks to the 16-day shutdown of the federal government, the IRS says that the 2014 filing season will be delayed by about one or two weeks. The agency says it needs enough time to test its processing systems. The season was expected to start Jan. 21. The delay means the IRS might start accepting returns by Jan. 28 or as late as Feb. 4. The final word on this will come out in December. The tax deadline remains April 15. According to the IRS: “The government closure came during the peak period for preparing IRS systems for the 2014 filing season.

It may have been a long time coming, but President Barack Obama's decision to stand up to the obstructionists in Congress that led to the 16-day government shutdown in October has begun to pay off. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, recognizing the self-inflicted damage his Republican Party suffered then, has confronted the tea party and other naysayers who caused that shutdown by striking a compromise on a very modest budget deal....